Thoughts on classical music in London, on the web and beyond. By Gavin Dixon.

Tuesday, 15 July 2014

Crimea - The Opera

St
Petersburg Chamber Opera

Public life is changing
fast in Russia, and like all other media, the arts are increasingly put to the
service of unchecked nationalist propaganda. I was in St Petersburg last week
and attended the press conference and dress rehearsal for a new opera
production, Crimea. Both were quite
chilling, not only for the extreme rightwing messages being put across, but
also for the fact the whole enterprise was presented as if it were business as
usual, with no hint of dissent (even from the press), and not even a suggestion
that any other interpretation of the Crimea conflict could be possible.

Echoes of the Stalin
era resonate through this production, but that’s entirely deliberate. It is
based on Sevastopoltsy, written in
1946 by Marian Koval. The original is about the siege of Sevastopol in 1941-2.
Clearly, the subject of the original opera serves the new production well, but
so too does the Socialist Realist score, all patriotic marches and mass songs.
In Koval’s opera, the Soviet stand against the Nazi aggressors is compared with
similar events in the Crimea War (the Russians lost that one, of course, a fact
this opera chooses to brush over).

For the new production,
the opera has been renamed to the more apposite Crimea, and the libretto completely rewritten. The work now takes
the two previous conflicts as models for the more recent one. Comparisons
between1942 and 2014 are easily drawn. The Germans remain the aggressors, or
among them at least. Angela Merkel is among the vilified politicians, and
footage is shown of her on a screen that only a few minutes earlier showed
Luftwaffe bombers. Comparisons between the Russian leaders of the three
centuries are more problematic, but are overcome by the introduction of a sharp-suited
modern-day narrator, Putin in all but name.

The production is being
staged at the St Petersburg Chamber Opera, a small company based in a large
town house near the Mariinsky. It is the brainchild of the company’s artistic
director, Yuri Alexandrov. He held court at the press conference ahead of the
dress rehearsal, and expounded at some length the motivations behind the
project. There was a lot of political rhetoric here, all coming from a position
of absolute certainty and conviction. Crimea belongs to Russia and always has,
that was a given. The new Ukrainian administration didn’t get too much of a
hard time. Russia’s quarrel is not with the Ukrainians, Alexandrov explained,
it is with the Americans. And the Europeans? They are just blind. Despite the
clear propaganda aims of this project, Alexandrov seemed convinced that he was
merely presenting “the truth” and that there was no polemic dimension to it at
all.

The
Creative Team. Alexandrov second from the right.

The new work is
described as an “opera-meeting”, and Alexandrov was keen to present it as a radical
genre-busting enterprise, in which the audience play a crucial role in the performance.
In fact, it was nothing of the sort. The performance is staged in the round,
bringing all the blood and gore closer to the audience than is comfortable.
There is some Q&A, but it amounts to the audience shouting “da” or “net” on
cue in response to political slogans. And for the mass song that forms the
finale, a dozen or so cast members planted in the audience suddenly run on to
join the chorus, as if to imply general consent on the part of all present.

Alexandrov clearly
assumes his views are shared by everybody involved. Certainly, the cast and
crew entered into the project with a rare enthusiasm. I don’t think I’ve ever
seen an opera performance sung and acted with as much commitment and passion as
this. There are many children in this production (used for emotional
manipulation purposes of course) and Alexandrov explained that many of them had
postponed their holidays to appear. They won’t be visiting the Crimea this summer,
he mused, but their work here would ensure that they will always be able to do
so in the future.

Considering the
contentious views he was presenting in the press conference, Alexandrov got a
very easy time in the questions afterwards. One journalist asked if references
to Stalin in the original had been replaced directly with references to Putin,
on the grounds that the syllable structure and rhyme could be retained.
Alexandrov responded with approval to the idea (there aren’t any references to
Stalin in the original so it wasn’t an option) and explained that this performance
was intended as the just the first step. Hopefully, he said, the company would then
take the show to Moscow. There is a point near the end that would be ideal for
Putin to give an address as part of the performance. Then we could have a real
conversation, he said, not just a theatrical one.

The
action takes place on a map of Crimea.

The
modern-day narrator. Let’s call him “Putin”.

Nurses
carrying bloodied bandages, and distributing them to the audience.

Things
are good for the ethnic Russians, before the Turks/Germans/Ukrainians arrive.

War
and pestilence.

The
Soviet/Russian Navy restores order.

Refugees,
on their way to Rastov probably.

Maidan
protests, or riots rather.

The
children implore “Putin” to help them.

This
girl cries “Must we be forced to give up our native language?” then puts the microphone
under the nose of an audience member for a response.

Don’t
worry, “Putin” won’t let that happen.

Ukrainian
president Petro Poroshenko. He’s the bad guy.

The
Tartars. Life is easy for them now they are protected by the Russians.

3 comments:

Marian Koval, in addition to being a composer of no talent, was a nasty little turd who very vocally contributed to the exile, condemnation and early deaths of many real composers like Roslavets. The fact they're resurrecting RAPM socialist-realist crap now tells us all we need to know about the current climate.

Right. I spoke to one Russian about this production, she’d be about my age (late 30s). When she was taught at school about the Zhdanov decree, Koval was presented as a model composer of the era and the antithesis of everything that Shostakovich, Prokofiev et al. were being censured for. No wonder he’s so obscure today.

.

Gavin Dixon is a writer, journalist, editor and blogger specialising in classical music. He writes reviews and articles for a number of publications and websites. Gavin has a PhD on the Symphonies of Alfred Schnittke and is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is also a member of the editorial team behind the ‘Alfred Schnittke Collected Works’ edition, which recently began publication in St Petersburg. More information on Gavin’s writing activities can be found at his website: www.gavindixon.info